A Child Is Born

Joy Upon Joy A Precious Boy

Israel hopes and trusts in His word;

In promises veiled in mystery.

400 years and now Gabriel is heard

Our awaited Savior we finally see!

Mary delivers, with radiant face,

The Deliverer of our sinful race.

 Our “God-With-Us”, perfect and holy

His life begins in condescension

In a bed of hay and stable lowly

While sheep and cows give their attention

Hope upon Hope and Joy upon Joy

Our Savior is born as a precious boy

Now grown, now groaning, blood in his sweat

Betrayed, condemned amidst sinners jeers

Hung high on a cross and paying our debt

His suffering helps to dry all our tears

Undeserved death; a man of sorrow

He opens the way for our joy tomorrow.

Death has no claim where there is no sin

Satan be damned, our Savior still lives!

 Killed on the cross, He then rose again

Triumphant now, forgiveness He gives.

Rejoice and be glad this Christmas day

The Christ-child will take our sins away.

Try Something Different

The passing of Thanksgiving marks the onslaught of Christmas consumerism. Every year there are the inevitable laments over the way Christmas has turned into extended (and expensive) worship of the idol of materialism.

Christians and non-Christians alike express their dismay over the blatant consumerism. They look down their noses at the insanity of Black Friday. The funny thing is that their own lives and spending habits expose a certain hypocrisy. It turns out that most people aren't actually interested in cutting back their own consumerism. Instead they try to redefine their consumerism to give themselves a false sense of moral superiority.

Folks reject the heathen, hedonistic impulses of Black Friday and instead indulge in "Small Business Saturday" thinking that is better, smarter consumerism. Or they indulge themselves on "Cyber Monday", which is obviously morally superior because you can do it in your pajamas with your little kids with you. There is now even a "Fair Trade Tuesday" for the most holy and upright of gift givers.

Before my sarcasm gets me in trouble let me say that I think that buying fair trade is a good thing and I love supporting local businesses. There is something commendable about that. However, the problem I have with all of these consumer events is that they can give a thin veneer of moral uprightness while still undeniably remaining ploys to get us to consume more.

If you want to approach the Christmas giving season differently from all the mindless consumption you see at Christmas the answer certainly can't just be consuming differently. YOU ARE STILL CENTERING THE CONVERSATION AROUND CONSUMPTION!

I have a couple thoughts on how you and I might go about Christmas differently. What if rather than thinking about our gift giving from a "what can I buy (consume)" perspective we instead thought about our gift giving from a "what can I create" mindset? What if we gave from our giftedness, passions, and skills and not just our wallets? Let get real. The time and effort spent on a homemade gift usually show more love and thoughtfulness than almost anything picked up at a store.

Why not learn a new skill so you can create something for your loved ones? Why not teach our kids to sew, write, paint, cook, and create for their gifts? Turn Black Friday into a day for Christmas Creations?

For some of us it seems a stretch to think we can create something for someone else. We are not artistic, crafty, or otherwise creative. If that is you, learn a new skill. Or dig deeper into you current skills. I guarantee there is something you can find to create that would bless others.

If you are still struggling with how you could turn from a Christmas consumer to a Christmas creator here are some examples:

• My non-crafty wife is an excellent cook. She has learned to do canning and has made fantastic jams, and ice cream toppings. She has also learned to make candy, fudge, and other tasty treats.
• For the busy mom consider making some quality, nutritious freezer meals. My wife and I would gladly receive these as Christmas gifts (hint, hint to any family reading this).
• Learn sewing, knitting, carpentry, painting, blog design (for those writers who struggle with technology), landscaping, etc.
• Mix up an assortment of homemade bbq rubs and herb and spice mixes. Shout out to my brother-in-law who blessed my stomach with this one a few years ago!
• Create a custom cornhole (beanbag toss) set.

I'd love to hear other ideas. I am currently trying to come up with ideas for gifts I need to give soon so help me out!

It is too easy to scoff at and mock the consumerism we see around us, all the while falling into it ourselves. Try doing something different this year. 

Hopeful

We live in a dark world of our own making. There is no hiding from the news. All of this heartache and hurt is the price paid to gods made in our own image.

May God have mercy on us all.

It is appropriate to linger in a season of lament and sorrow but for the follower of Christ it is also precisely the time for an uncommon hope to shine through.

To place hope in humanity's capacity to fix the mess we find ourselves in is to abandon ourselves to further despair. Hope can only be found in God.

Trust in him and his goodness and move forward with bold acts of righteousness, mercy, justice, and humility.

For any who don't know Jesus who might stumble here, take a few minutes to examine your hopes. The politics, science, humanism, or other things that you might hope in are just as likely to produce despots, atom bombs, and anarchy as they are to produce security, peace, and abundance. A hope found within human control is no hope at all.

Hope in God never disappoints!

I Was Right

If you've been married for any length of time you've had moments where with a vindictive sense of pleasure you tell your spouse "I told you so". Nothing feels sweeter than that little moment of victory. It doesn't even matter if it is something important or stupid and of no consequence. Being right just fees soooo good no matter the circumstance.

Unfortunately my wife has an incredible memory, is well read, and can recall details and information far better than me. Add to that the fact that she is an excellent judge of character and an exceptional listener and it should become obvious that I am not often celebrating those glorious moments of being right. As an aside, my wife reads about half these posts so I hope she skips this one where I admit she is usually right!

With victories being so few and far between for me I tend to hold on to them. They are my 'stones of remembrance' and serve me well every time I end up frustrated about being wrong again. Admittedly my 'victories' aren't much to go on so I really have to play them up and help my wife re-live those moments. It's kind of like being from Wisconsin where apart from a dumb football team there isn't much else to celebrate. Those victories, that are inconsequential to most of the world, become heightened, glorious, and almost rapturous experiences in the minds of those celebrating.

Anyway, this post isn't about a stupid green and yellow football team from a state whose only other contributions to the world are beer and cheese. It is a post about me and one of the most glorious "I told you so" moments in my marriage.

Neither my wife or I do well with traffic and construction and delays while driving. Even with these similarities, early in our marriage we had different ways of coping with backups at merging lanes. My wife would dutifully get over as soon as possible while grumbling about the wait she was facing. I would squeeze every last inch out the closing lane with a look of glee on my face as I passed all the saps who had already merged.

For years if I was driving with my wife in those traffic-laced, lane closing, merging situations I would get an "Aaron...you're that guy. Don't be that guy" or even a "that's rude" from my wife. And I would shrug it off and point to the beautiful open road in front of us and say "we don't want to waste open lanes!"

So whenever we came upon a backed up merge we would go back and forth:

"Get over"

"The lane is open!"

"It's not nice"

"But it's smart"

"We have to merge!!!"

"We will. Eventually. This is faster"

These incidents were always followed by conversations that took far more time and emotion than was warranted for something so minor. My wife, bolstered with over-confidence from usually being right refused to back off her stance. And I, equipped with cold logic and practical experience wouldn't back down either.

Our standstill came to an end thanks to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. It is their job to study traffic, efficient driving, and safe roadways. Backups at merging lanes were slow enough and dangerous enough for them to spend significant time and money doing research for how to make things faster and safer.

And their findings?

I WAS RIGHT!!!

Completely, absolutely, and with no qualifications I was right in sticking to the closing lane as long as possible. They even have name for it: the zipper merge.

And the best part was that the Department of Transportation decided to disseminate this information was through a series of public service announcements. They even wrote a jingle about 'the zipper merge'.  I nearly had to pull off the road the first time I heard that jingle. The sense of vindication was so wonderful and pure.

I wish I could say that I didn't gloat or smirk or taunt the first time my wife and I heard the "zipper merge" jingle together. But then I would be lying and I really want this blog to be a place of honest conversation. I whooped and yelled and smiled an obnoxious smile. And then "I told you so" may have been proclaimed once or twice or ten times.

Finding and watching these videos with my wife remains a highlight of our early years of marriage. Thanks MNDOT!

And again here:

Even in writing this post that sense of satisfaction comes back. Before you judge too harshly remember that I have very few victories to hang my hat on. But for that one moment (and every moment those PSA's come on again) I was right.

Sometimes I try to make a point out of the stories I tell here but I enjoy this one too much to sully it by making it into something more than what it was: glorious and petty vindication.

I'd love to hear of other petty "I told you so" moments that you celebrate disproportionately to their actual significance. Or perhaps I'm the only one....

How to Support Planned Parenthood

This post is about supporting abortion. It is about you and me and choices.

You see, support for abortion providers comes in a whole host of ways. Much of that support is easily recognizable. More of it comes in powerful, subtle, and unnoticed ways.

With a blog of relative insignificance that is read primarily by family, friends, and those within my Christian ministry circles, chances are that you are pro-life.  You're not reading this because you want to support Planned Parenthood, but because of your surprise that I of all people would write about supporting them.

And here is where this post makes gets tough. As pro-life, crisis-pregnancy-center-loving, adoption supporting, conception-to-coffin lovers of life, we have been supporting the massacre happening at Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics.

I'm not talking about our tax dollars.

I'm talking about our silence.

Let's forget the media's silence on the issue and look at our own.

The excuses come easily even in light of the horrors revealed by recently released videos showing Planned Parenthood officials bartering over the price of baby parts:

• I don't want to bring negativity to Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• I can't bring myself to watch the videos. I can't stomach that kind of stuff.
• I'm not really a political person
• This is controversial and I don't have the energy to engage the debates
• People's minds are already made up on abortion

Our silence, our unwillingness to speak, up condemns more babies and possible mothers to horrifying choices. It allows this worst possible "choice" to persist in the public's mind as a reasonable and liberating "choice" for women in often desperate situations. Our silence is wholehearted commitment to the status quo.

I wish that silence were broken. With tears. With anger. With prayer. With action.

Silence in the face of evil and injustice is a symptom of deeper issues. In the case of the horrors of abortion the two primary issues seem to be ignorance and apathy. Too many people are intellectually limited and emotionally unaffected.

Our ignorance leaves us paralyzed and unable to speak truthfully or graciously. Sadly, it seems that much of our ignorance is willful. We don't watch the videos. We don't study moral arguments against abortion. We write it off as political banter that never goes anywhere. And we stay unknowing. Ill-equipped. Ignorant. And impotent to bring change.

In addition to, or perhaps because of our ignorance we are apathetic and emotionally unaffected. In our hearts we know how deeply disturbing the truth is and how revolting the videos are so we avoid them. We know that there are things in life that we can't un-see, un-hear, and un-feel without betraying our consciences.

So we avoid the videos and the conversation using the excuses above and try to cauterize ourselves from the pain we know is there. We don't enter into the lives of the broken, hurting, or desperate women who are considering abortion because we know it will be costly. We know that the emotions that will be triggered if we really see what happens and we will be uncomfortable with those feelings. Our idolatry of comfort runs too deep for us to be bothered by reality so we remain silent.

The silence needs to be broken.

We need to know the realities behind what happens over  1,000,000 times a year in abortion clinics.

We need to hear the barbaric language of massacre: crushing, cutting, slicing, severing, extracting.

We need to understand the medical language used to inoculate the public's mind to the violence: tissue procurement, fetal extraction, procedure, research, clumps of cells, line items.

We need to know why abortion statistics are racially and economically skewed.

We need to enter into painful, broken situations in order to love the women facing unplanned pregnancies.

We need to weep and lament. Over lives lost and over our silence.

We need to confess and repent of our apathy and ignorance.

We need to pray. Fervently. Urgently. Constantly.

Please watch the videos. Read the blogs. Let your tears stream and your wails resound and your stomach retch and your heart cry out.

And then speak. Loudly. Resolutely. Repeatedly. With wisdom and knowledge and grace and mercy and love and compassion. To those you know and those in power and those involved and those considering such a dreadful 'choice'. Use every resource available to you: social media, family, friendship, pulpits, your political representatives.

We too, have a 'choice'. For too long and for too many that choice has been silence.

Abortion isn't something that will change with our silence. God willing it will eventually change through politics. But first it will change through tears of lament, prayer, repentance, courageous words and actions, and through a growing moral revulsion over the sacrifice of babies to the idols of convenience, finances, research and comfort.

No words can better capture what we are facing than those from Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He spoke these words facing a Nazi regime that killed millions. Their doctors did 'research' too.

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

Ambition Will Kill You

Ambition is a dangerous friend to keep. Not necessarily a bad friend. Just dangerous. The reason is because whether it is for wealth, prestige, and power, or tamer goals of safety, security, and family, ambition will either poison your soul through self-indulgent flattery or cost you your life through sacrificial humility.

If you have any sense of ambition and you are earnest in pursuing those ambitions then these are your only two possible outcomes. Ironically, in the long run the former turns out to be death in street clothes while the latter is a flourishing life dressed up in sacrifice. One is a spiritual death while the other may very well include a physical death.

So, after diving straight into the deep end of the pool on this post I want to help you tread water a little bit so you can get a better read on what I mean.

Let's start where the Bible starts. In the creation account of Genesis we see that God gives humans two distinctive callings that are meant be the hallmarks of their humanness. Our capacity to bear God's image is revealed in these two activities.

The first is to be fruitful and multiply, filling the earth. It is a call to take the God-glorifying gifts that belong exclusively to humans and carry them to the uttermost reaches of the earth. Something about our reproduction, raising families, and moving to new places brings God glory as it reveals him to be a God of abundance. As the pinnacle of creation and image bearers our multiplying and spreading fills the earth with more and more capacity to display God's image upon earth.

The second distinct calling given to humans is to subdue the earth as we spread, exercising dominion as we multiply and expand. This is a call to imprint our beautiful, God-glorifying humanness upon the earth. We are to steward, shepherd, mold, shape, order, and tend to the rest of earth in a way that brings about more life, beauty, and worship of God. Our dominion properly carried out brings forth more possibilities, more productivity, and more beauty from the rest of the created order.

Certainly these two callings ought to inspire ambition. None of them is accomplished quickly, easily, or without boldness, risk, and planning. Humans then, from the beginning, are embedded with gifts and desires and a calling that are ambitious at the core. To explore, create, protect, expand, mold, shape, proliferate, and spread all require ambition. We were meant to be ambitious.

And yet....

Chapter 3 of Genesis is a story of human ambition run amok. Our God-given, ambition-creating call to multiply and to subdue is subverted with the temptation to 'be like God'. One of the lies behind Satan's words is the thought that we might be able to claim some of God's glory as our own. The problem is that we were only ever created to reflect and participate in His glory. The two callings we were given demonstrate how we ought to bear His image, bringing him glory as we multiply and subdue.

The image we bear, the 'likeness' that can be seen in every human face, is one that reflects God. However, our sinful hearts want to look at that reflection and see ourselves, giving ourselves credit and glory. God is not eager to share that glory and we fail to realize that we only have glory to the degree that we are appropriately reflecting God's glory.

Equally as tragic as our failed glory-reflecting is the way we can look at others and deny that the reflection seen there is that of God. To try to claim that reflection as our own or to try to deny that others bear God's reflection is a foolish act of treason. 

And so it is that since the fall much of human ambition is wasted clinging to something that isn't rightfully ours. Our ambition causes us to cling to, fight for, and hold on to glory that was only ever meant for God. In doing so, we abandon our true image-bearing calling in order to pursue our own image and glory. This kind of fallen ambition only leads to brokenness, suffering, injustice, and death.

Granted, our ambitions usually feel smaller than this. They feel safe and 'normal.' We desire security for the future. Or safety for our family. Or for control over various aspects of life. Or maybe we just want a better job or more influence at work. We climb corporate ladders, practice spiritual disciplines, raise 'good' children, and 'earn' everything we have.

None of these things are wrong by themselves but how our heart relates to them is crucial to understand. Our ambitions reveal the inner workings of our hearts in a very clear manner. Because our ambitions give such clear pictures of our hearts we usually try to hide, minimize, or downplay our ambitions. Or we keep our lives and our ambitions small because deep down we know that they aren't what they should be.

At the end of the day our hearts and ambitions will either be self-seeking or selfless. We will either build our own image and kingdom or we will live out our Genesis 1 calling that extends God's rule and reign, giving Him glory.

If our ambition is selfish we will be grasping, clingy, tight-fisted, and anxious. In our efforts at work, with our families, and in our hearts we will protect ourselves and the image and identity we have created for ourselves. And slowly our souls will lose there capacity to truly and properly bear God's image. Our ambitions will lead us to think that life is about hoarding, hiding, and fighting to hold on to what is 'ours' or should be ours. 

When our hearts are oriented towards this kind of ambition we worry about scarcity and ignore God's abundance. We look at our lives and see risk and only feel fear, not glorious expectation. We will identify threats and not see possibilities. Our ambition will be for accruing wealth, status, power, or control and security. Our scale might not be that of politicians or CEO's but our hearts will be the same.

And little by little, with our little worldly ambitions, we will poison our souls.

There is a better way for our ambitions to end if they are aimed towards bringing more glory to God. We can live out our original callings to multiply and subdue. We will be open-handed, generous, and joyful because we know the abundance of Him from whom all blessings flow.

And with fullness of joy we will more fully reflect God's image and declare His glory as we become more of what we were always meant to be.

We will explore risks eagerly. We will view new and unexplored horizons with anticipation and not foreboding. Getting married, bearing children and raising families won't happen with cold calculation of finances, timing, or the brokenness of the world. We will create and develop and contribute and not just consume and exploit.

Most of all we will be selfless and generous knowing that doing so helps others more truly bear the image of God.

In case none of this has made sense I am going to bring in some scripture that might help it come together. Thankfully these passages are pretty clear and well known.

Our first stop is with the lovable, bumbling brothers James and John. They are earnest and ambitious but a bit shortsighted in Mark 10 and Matthew 20. In these passages we find them making a bold and ambitious request: to sit at the right hand and left hand of Jesus when he comes into his kingdom. Their request is dripping with ambition. They are asking for status, privilege, authority, respect and much more! It would be easy to despise leaders as openly ambitious as James and John. I am sure the other disciples weren't excited to overhear the request.

As brash as their question is, Jesus answer is just as surprising. Their ambitions aren't shoved back in their faces and Jesus doesn't try to take them down a peg or two. Instead he recognizes that their ambitions are not yet fully aligned to the vision and values of his kingdom. They are still desiring the benefits of knowing Jesus more than they are desiring simply knowing Jesus.

What they desire isn't a bad thing but actually a very good thing. James and John just don't realize what it takes to get those there. That is why Jesus asks if they are able to drink from the same cup as He. Jesus reveals that the road to great things in His kingdom and the way for the ambitious to get ahead is directly opposite of what the world claims.

Those who seek to be great in the Kingdom will not find power, privilege, authority, status, or wealth to be of advantage. Rather, the path to greatness in the Kingdom is marked by selflessness, sacrifice, and generosity. Godly ambition will be known by its humility.

For those who follow Christ this means that we don't need to be afraid of being ambitious. In fact, it means that our ambitions can explode. The problem isn't that our ambitions are too big but that they are too small and too selfish. Big, godly ambitions are tragically rare things for followers of Christ. When our ambitions are godly we can freely, joyfully, and beautifully live out our calling to multiply and subdue because we will have a sense of abundance, awe, purpose, and identity that rest outside of ourselves and our accomplishments.

Philippians 2 is the second place we should look for re-orienting our ambitions so that we can properly bear God's image. This passage is what James and John needed to hear and it is what we need to hear. It points to Christ as our example and shows that the exaltation that the brothers sought is possible to those who are able to drink from the same cup as Jesus Christ. Humility, sacrifice, and an ability to disregard the trappings of earthly ambitions are shown to be the values and behaviors of those who would be great.

Our ambitions will be costly regardless of how our heart is oriented. For the selfish ambitions, death awaits. For the selfless ambitions, sacrifice awaits. Jim Elliot's famous words here are helpful for distinguishing between the two kinds of ambition: "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

With our hearts being revealed by our ambitions we can ascertain whether we are holding on to things that we cannot keep or to things we cannot lose. Perhaps most beautiful in our ambitious pursuit of that which we cannot lose is this promise from Matthew 6:33: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

Like James and John and like the saints in Philippians we need these words to keep our ambitions right. We need to make sure that our ambitions are big enough to include multiplying our image-bearing and subduing the earth in God-glorifying ways. James and John are revealed to have too small ambitions, settling for things that come from God rather than being ambitious enough to have God himself.

My ambitions are too small. Too selfish. Too concerned with life on this earth. I imagine that I'm not alone in needing to ask God to give me bigger ambitions that will bring him glory.

What Everyone Was Made To Do

I just finished reading an incredibly powerful and profound book by Andy Crouch called Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power. The book has been deeply affecting for me as I think about life, family, ministry, culture and so many other things. In fact, I was only a few chapters in when it made my list of "best things I've read recently" a few weeks ago!

The book is rich with thought, but one in particular has stuck with me over the past several weeks. Crouch describes learning the cello at the age of 41 so that his children can see him struggling, learning, growing, and stretching himself. He was making a point about the lessons learned while putting oneself in a position where one is dependent upon another's capacity to teach or equip you in a skill. While profound, that thought isn't what has stuck with me most. Buried in that section of the book is this little gem of a thought: 

"I want our family to create together, not just to consume together."

For weeks now that line has kept crashing into my internal monologues about parenting, family, and work. Usually it shows up in provocative and confrontational ways. It has me turning over all areas of my life asking questions like:

• Does this demonstrate a fruitful, expansive use of my time, talent, and treasure?
• Am I bringing about flourishing in my life or more importantly in the life of others?
• Is what I'm consuming necessary for me to consume? Media? Social media? Food? Housing? 
• How am I adding value or beauty to the world and to others?
• Am I helping my children to see the beauty, power, dignity, and gravity of the image of God in themselves and others?
• Am I living out the divine commands for humans to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue and have dominion? If so, and more importantly am I doing it in a way that brings glory to God and allows others to flourish?

In a risk averse culture I have noticed that many of the things in my life (most notably retirement savings) that feel like wise decisions are really about delayed consumption. Somehow we don't feel so guilty about what is blatant consumption if we project it into the future.

With so much of my life built on convenience and efficiency I have realized that in reducing the wait and effort required to obtain some things I am really just increasing my capacity for consumption. 

I think the are powerful and redemptive possibilities found in slowing down and cultivating the kind of life where struggle, patience, and steep learning curves are the norm. Our culture seems to have no place for this creative, deliberate, non-consumptive way of life.

Our accumulation of wealth, status, and in the case of millennials, hobbies like crossfit, home-brewing, fantasy football, and attaining social media prowess are usually facades for lives that only know how to consume. We entertain and 'improve' ourselves and exercise our freedom in Christ for almost entirely self-satisfying purposes (which, by the way is the antithesis of the freedom Christ bought for us!). If we are a bit uneasy about these patterns of consumption we will find ways to do them in community to help ease our consciences, because community is a good Christian thing to do right? But it is still all the same sad story of consumption.

Crouch is dead-on in his assessment of the need for humans to be creating and not just consuming. I have been so challenged these past few weeks to dig through my heart to see if I am really living out God's call for humans to flourish, multiply, and imprint our God-glorifying, image-bearing  humanness all over this earth. At our best our creating gives glory to God. In using music as an example Crouch puts it this way: 

"But from time to time, you hear music- whether Tuvan throat singing, a Beethovan symphony, a Bach chorale, a black gospel chorus- that shakes you to the core and leaves you both utterly satisfied and hungrier for life than you have ever been for life. That is glorious music. The best of culture has this quality of transcendent excellence, the ability to be utterly itself and to speak of something far greater than itself."

God is Something Far Greater that we all ought to be striving to show forth with our creative capacities.

I don't think you need to be a creative genius to enter into this God-given capacity to create. But you do need to be careful to not let busyness, convenient alternatives, and desires to consume and save steal away opportunities to cultivate a life that creates in a way that honors and glorifies God.

For you it might not be art or music. It might be the creative work of coaching a team and building chemistry. Or it might just be chemistry, creating new drugs that lead to better lives. Maybe try planting a garden.  You could learn an instrument at the age of 41 like Crouch because there is beauty in the struggle. Or like me, you could try to write what passes as a blog. The possibilities are endless.

I'm not one to interpret art, music, or poetry but I am pretty sure that this song by Sara Groves is getting at the very same ideas about our capacity to create:

Wanna See Me Angry?

I don't express a whole lot of emotion. Most of the time it feels like a nuisance to bother with them at all. To be honest, most days I have a slightly larger range of emotions than the average banana. However, there is one thing that stirs up emotion and gets me hot under the collar with unfailing regularity: the self-checkout lines at grocery stores.

Nothing gets my blood boiling like watching someone cradle a cabbage like a baby while struggling to find the code to enter. And don't get me started on the folks who use cash to pay their bills. The whole thing is just an exercise in futility for most people.

It doesn't help that I have really bad luck in picking the right people to follow. I tend to choose to follow the guy with the 4 identical cans of soup in his basket over the hipster chick with her wide array vegetables without bar codes and overpriced organic health food. And inevitably it turns out that the veggies/no bar code girl can kick a registers butt, moving with precision and expertise while the 4-cans-of-soup dude gets dumbfounded with each can as he tries to swipe it across the scanner over and over. And over. And over.

Why do I always choose the slow person? And no that isn't a question about my wife. Although some mornings....but I digress.

As an introvert I rarely have the urge to strike up conversations with strangers but when I find myself in these situations I come dangerously close to blurting out phrases that would best be described as colorful and unsavory.

Before you judge me too harshly, let me confess that I wish it weren't so. I wish I could master my emotions. With as few as I have you'd think it would be easier! I wish that 3 minutes of my time lost didn't bring up such ugliness. And I wish I picked better lines!

The good Lord must think that I need extra practice in patience. There is nothing like being at the mercy of someone else's incompetence for surfacing some suprising and unpleasant emotions (hello parenting).

There is two millennium of speculation about what the "thorns in the flesh" were for Paul. Most people go for really serious, deep stuff but my guess is that it was some trivial thing like the self-checkout line that kept bringing out the worst in him. We all seem to have 'triggers' that are guaranteed to make us forget everything our parents told us about being kind and gracious towards others.

More and more, I think that those are the moments that we are most truly ourselves and the rest of the time we are just lucky enough to have some measure of control over our circumstances so that we can keep the ugly stuff in. What we are at our worst is far more telling about who we really are than who we are at our best. For me every trip to the grocery store is a reminder that I'm not quite the guy that others usually think me to be.

So, if you see me at the grocery store pray for me. Even if I pick the line with the cut-my-coupons-while-everyone-else-waits person. I hope that I can get better at avoiding my usual surge of anger.

Our Discomfort With Discomfort

In our house nothing keeps papa bear from his slumber like the general malaise and discomfort that comes from not having life figured out. Unfortunately, at 33 years of age, I still don't have much of life figured out! The resulting discomfort quite readily turns into anxiety if my head and heart are not right. From low-level, nuisance anxiety to take-your-breathe-away panic, I am well versed in the ways it steals joy and sleep.

With a year spent focusing my head and heart on experiencing rest (see here and here) I have had to look my anxiety in the face quite a bit. It turns out that anxiety is not a natural bedfellow for someone who is seeking the Lord. As I have worked on resting in Him, my anxieties have slowly been slipping further into the background.

An honest examination of our anxieties and the experiences that cause us mental or emotional discomfort can reveal a lot about our hearts. Scripture has plenty to say about anxiety and worry precisely because they seem like an ever-present possibilities in our lives. In my life they are most often a result of uncertainty and unanswered big life questions

A lot of times people think they are pretty good at diagnosing their sources of anxiety: conflict with a loved one, concern over work projects, the state of the world as seen on the news, or lack of clear direction in a particular area of life. I know I usually have considered myself a good diagnostician of my own struggles and stresses.

Looking closely at my own anxiety I can see that much of it comes from being uncomfortable with discomfort. I want answers, resolution, and closure and usually want to avoid the messy, complicated, and patience-stretching work of getting those things.

As a Christian, my first tendency is to pray for the resolution of that issue. I pray for relief, clarity, changed circumstances, or whatever else I think will best remove or resolve the issue.

And for years this felt like the right thing to do, bringing those things to the Lord. God certainly is capable of answering those prayers and bringing about those changes. But this year I've started to see it differently.

Think about it for a minute. Something in your life is bringing some discomfort, frustration, or anxiety to your life. So you ask God to resolve the issue. What is really happening when you do that?

Hidden behind our pious prayers is often a heart that is just saying "give me what I want" or "I deserve to be comfortable". We are telling God that IF ONLY He would give us whatever resolution we are praying for we would have peace, joy, comfort, etc.

Too often our trust isn't actually in God's ability to BE those things for us but rather in his ability to give stuff to us that we think will provide those things for us. And we do find peace, joy, and comfort in those things. Sadly, God intends for us to find those thing IN Him and not just FROM Him.

This is precisely the problem with all of our anxiety. We don't correctly identify the source of our anxiety and discomfort and we are left saying "IF ONLY". We think that our struggling marital relationship is the issue. Or our finances. Or the uncertainty regarding our job. The deeper reality is that our anxiety and discomfort come from our broken relationship with God. The context where that brokenness displays itself may be our marriage or our finances or our job but rest assured that the underlying brokenness is rooted in how our hearts are relating to God.

Adam, when confronted by God in the garden identifies Eve as the source of his problems. Adam overlooks his own complicity and failure and thinks that IF ONLY God had given him someone better than Eve things would have been different.

Cain, with his poor relationship with God, looks at his brother and identifies Abel as the source of his troubles. Cain overlooks his own deficient worship and assumes that IF ONLY Abel wasn't showing him up things would be ok.

And right on down through the pages of scripture we can see people feeling anxious and thinking IF ONLY God would....

And so we too, overlook our lack of love and trust in God, and pray to Him thinking IF ONLY we had x, y, or z we could have peace and joy and truly experience God.

As an example consider a recent situation from my life that has brought its share of discomfort and anxiety.

My wife and I are 2 1/2 years into what will probably be a 3 1/2  or 4 year adoption process. We started this process thinking it would take 15-18 months. Unfulfilled desires, longings for our son or daughter, and a sense of being 'stuck' while we wait have been pretty steady companions. The waiting has not been pleasant. It has caused discomfort and frustration and anxiety.

So for quite a while we prayed for answers. Clarity. Quicker resolution to the whole process. For our son or daughter to come home soon. Those are good things right? Things that we know God has called us to. Things that would bring some measure of resolution, peace, joy, or comfort.

And yet...

Nowhere in those prayers did we actually acknowledge that it is God Himself that we need in order to experience peace or comfort. We've felt anxiety and a certain level of emotional (and financial) discomfort because of the adoption process and so we prayed for it to draw to an end.

But since when did adding a kid to a family bring peace or comfort or rest? I've done it twice already and each time my peace, comfort, and ability to rest have been severely challenged.

We have rightly longed for peace and an end to our anxiety and discomfort but we have wrongly assumed that those things are going to come from something God gives rather than simply from being with God. We have loved God for what He can do for us rather than for who he is. In those moments our faith is functionally no different than the prosperity gospel wherein we use or manipulate or beseech God to give us 'good' things. We fail to see that He is the Good Thing.

For us, our anxiety and discomfort have been exposing how much we rely on things and circumstances to keep us cool, calm, and collected. Too much of our supposed godliness has been revealed to be of the "as long as" variety where we set the conditions under which we will feel safe, secure, and comfortable do that we can live godly lives.

As long as the adoption process follows our timelines...

As long as costs work our as expected...

As long as our desires are met....

The thing is that what our hearts crave most is already available to us apart from any particular circumstances. If we are pursuing God and being filled with the Spirit we can be assured of love, joy, peace, patience, and so on. In experiencing discomfort and anxiety we ought to be praying for more of God and not for something else that we have identified as a 'solution'.

As I have worked to rest in the Lord I have had to confess that I often mistakenly come to God with prayer requests for a change in circumstances and not a change in my heart.

If God is my refuge and my strength, a rock and a shelter, and an ever present help for my need there is nothing apart from Him that will relieve my anxiety or discomfort.

He himself is our comfort. And joy. And peace. Our discomfort and our our anxiety reveal that we don't know know him as we ought to. Our discomfort with our discomfort should force to look inside our hearts. Too often when we experience discomfort we look outside ourselves to see what might bring relief.

The American idols of safety, security, prosperity, and health are a direct affront to our capacity to trust and know God as comfort for our souls. Anxiety creeps into our lives not because life is hard but because we aren't experiencing God.

My own heart can attest to the fact that much of my own sense of well-being, contentment, joy, and patience is built on having things go my way. It has been sad over the past few months to realize how much peace, joy, comfort, love, and other things I have missed out on by ignoring the fact that God is all of those things and more for those who love him.

My prayer is that in the future I would use my discomfort to reveal ways I am trusting in something besides God for comfort. I pray that I would quickly be able to identify the ways my anxiety is actually an issue of how closely I am walking with God and not an issue of circumstances.

It has been a thrilling and joy-filled journey to start again in my walk with God paying more attention to who he is and less attention to what he can do for or give to me. When feelings of discomfort or anxiety come up I now recognize them for the warning signs that they are of a floundering relationship with God. By His grace anxiety is slowly being replaced with peace, contentment, and joy.

What Are You Reading?

I love reading. A lot. My reputation as a nerd is so well established that I often get asked "what are you reading?"  Cooler people probably get asked "what movies have you seen" or "where have you traveled?" or maybe "where did you get your clothes?"

As a undeniable nerd I have never had those questions asked of me. Maybe its because if you stepped into my office right now you would see no fewer than nine books out, 3 of them recently finished and the others in some state of completion. I can't wait to see my nerdy genes showing up in my daughters!

One of the things I always get excited about is when I come across 'reading lists' from people more famous and influential than myself. I find them to be a fascinating peek into that person's life, personality, and disposition. I especially love to see them for people that are obviously committed to learning and dialogue and understanding others. These lists really are a fun way to learn about what fascinates and intrigues someone. It also usually helps me add new things to my reading list.

I'm not famous and I don't have people lining up to learn more about my disposition or likes and dislikes but I still felt like sharing a bit of one of my passions and pastimes with whoever might be reading this blog (thanks Mom!). Here is a list of some of my favorite books from the past few months:

• The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. This is quite simply the best book I have read in many years which, given the volume of reading I do, is saying something. Following a variety of narratives of real life folks this book documents what is known as the "Great Migration". Under Jim Crow oppression millions of African Americans fled the south seeking refuge in cities in the north and west of the United States and the author picks up on several streams and storylines in this decades long migration. I was heartbroken reading a history of racism and oppression that reached out from what I thought was a more distant time/place and into more familiar time/place, challenging many assumptions that I have held regarding race in this country. The personal accounts given are intimate and inspiring. This book is both a tragic and triumphant testament to some of the stories that belong to our nation. 
• Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power by Andy Crouch. I have waited years to find a book like this that digs into the issue of power in a profoundly Gospel centered manner. Crouch gives a refreshing and needed perspective on issues of power, privilege, and injustice by examining the good, fruitful, and God-honoring ways that humans are to bear His image. Too often the terms used in discussions of power are defined by psychologists, sociologists, economists, politicians, musicians, and others who have no biblical framework or motivation. This book truly is redemptive in the way it re-captures the language of power, privilege and injustice which allows Christians to bring the full weight of Scripture to the discussion. This is a refreshing, challenging, and indeed, powerful read for anyone thinking deeply about what human flourishing looks like and what bearing the image of God truly means.
• The Chosen, The Promise, My Name is Asher Lev, and The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. After ignoring my wife's suggestions for years I finally read The Chosen this spring. In the weeks after I read the 3 other books above because I couldn't get enough of Potok's writing. Written about about the coming of age experiences of young orthodox Jews, Potok reveals a fascinating world of deep faith, strong family bonds, and the struggle to make one's faith personal when entering adulthood. These books are beautiful and profound and, while from a Jewish background, gave me much to think about with my own Christian faith. 
• The Silmarillion by J.R.R Tolkien. If you've read Tolkien's more famous works on middle earth and haven't explored The Silmarillion you are missing out. Rich in imagery and epic in its storytelling, the book leaves you with profound sadness over the way things go wrong in that world while also encouraging you through stories of sacrifice, redemption, and hope. It is a bit like the Old Testament to The Lord of the Rings New Testament. You can read the New without the old and appreciate it deeply but when you understand the hopes, promises, failures, and fears of the Old it becomes much richer and more beautiful
• Angela's Ashes and Tis' by Frank McCourt. Another book recommended by my wife, this one left me laughing and crying. Given my work in a context of urban poverty I appreciated the manic pace of life that McCourt's storytelling gives as it is reflective of much that I have seen in the lives of those in poverty. There is a weightiness to Frank's life but also a levity and humor that is very refreshingly lacking in pretense or even the bitterness that can sometimes come with hard childhoods.

Here are some honorable mentions from the past several months:

• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson. 
• My Antonia by Willa Cather
• Any Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. This will always be on any list I put together regardless of what else I have been reading.
• Last Woman Standing by Winona LaDuke
• The Grace of Silence by Michelle Norris

So if you've made it this far in a post that could be boring for some, please take a minute and let me know what is on your reading list. I tend to binge on books and read them in big groups so I can go through them quickly. I'd love to add some new material to my list so catch me up to speed on what I'm missing out on.

A Bad Habit

I graduated from seminary over 7 years ago now. I am still trying to unlearn some things!

Don't get me wrong. There were all sorts of great things learned during those years of study that continue to have an impact in my life and ministry. However, there are is one thing I picked up during those years that has persistently been detrimental to my walk with God. You see, I developed a bad habit during those years in seminary that I think a lot of believers probably develop at different times in life. The circumstances under which the habit are formed might not be seminary for most, but the habit is a common one nonetheless.

The habit has to do with how we read and engage with God's word. It has to do with with 'knowing' scripture verses 'experiencing' the richness and beauty of scripture when we surrender to it. At the end of it all, experiencing is really a deeper more intimate form of knowing, but unfortunately most of us are quite content to settle for a shallow 'knowing' quite devoid of experience.

In seminary I learned skills and got exposed to tools that were supposed to help me grow in my understanding of scripture. It is true that these things helped tremendously with my knowledge of scripture but that didn't translate into my experience of scripture. I can study original languages to pick up on nuances lost in translation, pour over commentaries to see differing perspectives on a passage, point out structure in passages that give added depth, and cite all sorts of historical information to give extra context to what is happening in scripture.

All of these are good things. Preachers, teachers, and writers (and their audiences) love to use these things. And why not? You can sound pretty intelligent and feel significant when quoting church fathers and ancient philosophers. You get definite Christian street cred if you can walk someone through the various possible translations for tricky verbs in Greek. Throw in a reference to a dead white guy's thoughts on a passage? It's like hitting paydirt in some churches.

There is nothing wrong with doing any of those things. However, the troublesome habit I formed in seminary is that I ended up approaching scripture trying to be clever, well-read, well spoken, and intelligent. As a reader you might not do it in quite the same way as me, but I think all of us can tend towards this habit even if we are only preaching to ourselves.

We have our favorite pastors and theologians to quote. Our "bible studies" are more often actually "what one guy (usually white) thinks about the bible" studies. We also love our "red letter" bibles to help us know what is 'really' important, as if that determination was ours to make. And when all else fails we can fall back on our  church traditions and mistake church policy and preference for biblical truth.

The problem with the bad habits many of us take into our time in scripture is that they only help us with the knowledge of scripture and not with our experience of scripture. I know I struggle with this and so I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I might start developing some better habits and attitudes. What I have been concerned about in my life is that we can know all sorts of good, helpful and true things about God's word and not experience it as we ought to. A quick scan of biblical 'scholars' reveals a frightening number of atheists which tells me I am on to something.

How then ought we experience scripture so that our knowledge isn't fruitless or faithless? How can we approach scripture in a way that leads to transformation in our hearts and lives?

For starters, with humility. Gratitude. With a sense of awe and reverence fully aware of our need for God to speak to us. Scripture is something to be immersed in. Something to be saturated with. It should overwhelm and sweep over our hearts and minds with its truth and with God's love. There ought to be a very strong sense of surrender and submission when we go to scripture.

To help me out I have been trying to come up with an image or metaphor that might convey some of the concern I have felt about my own time spent reading the bible. The image I have came up with as I seek to re-train my heart to 'experience' and not just 'know' scripture is that of the weather. In particular, I am thinking about some of the ways that people 'know' the weather.

There is a seminary equivalent to studying the weather that comes across our nightly news: the weather forecast. There, we see on full display what years of study and use of excellent technology can produce: maps, predictions, patterns, and even the history of a particular storm. We can lay out historical trends, share records, give warnings and provide all that we usually need to 'know' about the weather.

But this 'knowledge' is very different from the experience of weather that ultimately makes any 'knowing' worth while.

It is one thing to 'know' the weather but to 'experience' the weather is quite another thing. The hope and longing and then sudden joy a farmer experiences at coming rain is a unique kind of knowledge that comes from experiencing the weather in the flesh and blood. Likewise, the awe and fear and terror brought about in the violence of a storm does something to our hearts that a forecast can't do. The serenity of Minnesota summers or the beauty of a sunset or the oppressive, will-crushing heat of the Texas sun are experiences that don't compute in the weather models we see on tv but each is a powerful way of 'knowing' the weather that is predicated on actually experiencing the weather.

We can all remember examples of all kinds of weather that we have experienced but we probably can't remember a single weather forecast we have seen through the years. There is something profoundly significant about knowledge that comes from experiencing something that just can't be re-reacted through the shallower intellectual knowledge. It sticks with us in a different way than what comes over the airwaves and onto our tv screens.

We study the weather in order to develop knowledge of the weather so that we can better experience it. However, at some point in time we need to give up the comfort and control of heat and air conditioning, step away from our screens and try to live life. It really is an act of surrender when we expose ourselves to the weather so that we can enjoy it for what it truly is: beautiful, dreadful, harsh, gentle, violent, calming, mundane, and inspiring. At their best, news forecasts help us make wise decisions on when and how to enjoy the weather.

So it should be with our study of scripture. Our commentaries, original language studies, favorite preachers/authors, and tools that help us see patterns, connect storylines, identify motifs, and diagram arguments should only serve the ultimate end of experiencing scripture. We need to use our 'knowledge' of scripture to step into scripture in the same way we step into the weather after a forecast: with no control of scripture (or weather) but surrendering to what God speaks there and using our knowledge to make wise decisions. We build up our 'knowledge' of the bible so that we can better experience the weather.

Just like with the weather, when we step out of the climate control of our commentaries and Greek lexicons and favorite bibles studies, we don't control what is said in God's word but surrender and submit to it. Unlike with the weather where we ought to avoid the bad stuff, we don't avoid the hardest stuff in scripture. A weather forecast helps us avoid stepping into a tornado, but our study and 'knowledge' of scripture ought equip us to do precisely that with God's word. The hard issues and big storms are not things to avoid but things to surrender to while trusting in God's goodness.

Experiencing scripture really is an act of dependence on the Holy Spirit as we ask him to speak, reveal, teach, and discipline. We don't come with pretension or a sense of control or with demands to hear certain things. We come empty handed in order to receive. We allow truth to saturate our hearts and minds. We become steeped in passages and dripping with words spoken by God himself for His people.

Along the way our experiencing becomes our knowing, moving us beyond translation issues, competing commentaries, and historical context to actually hearing from the God whose word is still living and active. Our knowing changes from reading about God to communing with God. We ought not read the bible as a Facebook profile for God but rather as a coffee date with Him. Seminary never taught me how to go on a date with God. Instead, I feel was trained to read and write profiles for God on a dating site!

As I see things today, the seminary experience of building 'knowledge' was never explained as being something to aid in experiencing scripture. Rather, it often was presented as some sort of spiritual 'climate control' which could be used to achieve mastery over scripture. As I continue un-learning this bad habit I am learning to surrender and submit with my head and heart so that God can speak to me.

Perhaps your journey is different. Perhaps none of this resonates. But for those who do connect with this I'd encourage you to step out of the comforts of climate control and into the winds and waves of God's word. Surrender and submit and FEEL and don't just think. Feel awe, reverence, humility, fear, gratitude, wonder and everything else God intended for us to feel in relation to him and scripture.

I know that in my life and in my time with God spent in scripture I want to be less like the weather forecaster and more like the farmer who looks to the skies with complete dependence on it with hopes and fears tied up with what may come or like the sailor who watches his sails snapping in the wind and feels the thrill of cutting through the waves.

I want to experience the richness, depth and power of scripture with the awe, wonder and sometimes terror of the little Minnesotan boy I once was. I would beg my mother to play outside on days when school was cancelled due to cold because there is something fearsome and fascinating about weather that can freeze your spit before it hits the ground. Or I would step onto the front porch when tornado sirens went off in order to feel the sting of hard rain and to watch the power of the wind twisting century old oaks in a way that seemed unfathomable. God's word holds the same possibilities for exciting and inspiring experiences.

For me it has meant a shift from trying to gain mastery of to a willingness to be mastered by scripture.

Let the winds blow as they may.

That's Not Me!

I am back in Philippians 2 today adding to the periodic series I am writing on the passage. Check out the other posts here, here, here, and here. It seems to be an endlessly fruitful endeavor for me as I spend time in those verses. God seems to reveal more and more about my heart and Himself in the process. Pride is a something that seem ever present in my heart sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly so this passage is always a chance for me to grow.

Do everything in selfish ambition and conceit, and in pride count yourself more significant than others. Let each of you look to your own interests and not the interests of others.

Okay, so obviously Paul doesn't put it like that in Philippians 2. However, for the sake of comparison and to help me look at my life I find that it can be helpful to flip passages like this to see if they are true of me. Often times we want to believe that our lives are in accord with scripture but sometimes seeing things written out like this can help reveal that things aren't as we might want to believe.

It is easy to read that re-written passage from Philippians 2 and say "that's not me". I bet the Philippians themselves would have said the same thing. And yet Paul felt it necessary to write these words to them and to us: "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

If we don't feel that my re-written words are sometimes true of us why would Paul write the words he did in fact write?

If we don't identify ourselves as selfish and proud why does Paul give us this extended passage exhorting us to be humble?

I think that if we were to really have our hearts exposed and our inner thoughts and motivations revealed we would be appalled to find that quite often we do in fact live out my re-written version of the passage.

We want to believe better about ourselves and our motives. But we all have had that little heart check that tells us to think about ourselves. Our future. Our family. Our reputation. Our comfort and safety. The list of things that we secretly consider could go on. Each one is justified in our hearts with a veneer of biblical wisdom. We are just being shrewd. Or prudent and wise. Or patient. Or careful stewards. Or trying to be 'balanced'.

Except this passage doesn't show balance. The next few verses gives us a picture of a Savior who is all in. Paul is working hard to show that there isn't really middle ground or a gray area when in comes to pride and humility. It really is an either/or endeavor. If we aren't intentional and diligent to pursue humility pride is going to creep in.

Paul knows that there is no empty space in our motives. We either proud and selfish or humble and selfless.

Philippians provides a heart check every time I read it. Perhaps that is why God has kept me coming back to this passage over and over. My heart needs some serious checking when it comes to pride. It's possible I'm the only one but a quick scan of Facebook or the comment sections online show that I am probably not the only one.

The good news is that Jesus isn't just our example in the Philippians 2 passage. He is also our provider. Trusting him allows us to give up our selfishness. We need to bend our knee to him and to humble ourselves before him. And in doing so we are given the capacity to do the same with others because we know that we are secure in Christ.

Maybe you don't connect with Paul's challenge to our pride as intimately as I do. Or maybe the fact that you don't is a warning sign that you need to dig deeper in your heart to look for pride. If I go back to my re-written version of the passage and Paul's original words I can honestly say that depending on the circumstances I will oscillate between the two in saying "that's not me". Looking to Jesus is the most sure way for me to be able to look at the re-written, selfish version and say "that's not me." Looking to Jesus is the best way for you to fight pride too!

My Biggest Parenting Fail

My wife is a natural parent. She is like a baby whisperer with newborns while I get nervous just thinking about their fragile dependence on the care of someone like myself. Once babies move past 3-4 months old and begin to do something besides eat, sleep, and poop I start to relax a bit. Still, parenting is seriously difficult work for me. I have had mishaps and parenting fails at every stage of my parenting career and in ways that my wife will never duplicate. Actually it is usually my wife who points out that "that wasn't a good idea".

There is the time (which I don't remember but Erica swears by) when I let my not-yet-two year old daughter join me on the roof when I was cleaning the gutters. Don't worry. We all survived. Miriam survived the 8 foot climb up a ladder and I survived my wife's wrath.

Then there is the time I locked myself out of the house when that same daughter was taking a nap during the same summer as the "let's go on the roof" incident. Her delight at waking up to see me pushing the air conditioner out of her window and crawling in was great to see. This happened twice.

Another parenting fail was when I road my bike across a college campus while holding/carrying our three-week-old daughter in an infant car seat. I thought the stares were the "wow, that's impressive" sort but my wife explained to me that they were "wow, that's stupid" stares.

And then there are the repeated failures at figuring out how to do my daughters hair. It's not that I don't care or don't try. It's just that the bedraggled, I-slept-through-a-tornado look comes into style at precisely the moment my wife leaves the house.

In more recent parent fail history, I thought it would be a good idea to take our oldest daughter to get her ears pierced. Without telling her mother. Didn't even ask the question. Oops.

Seeing this all written together is kind of embarrassing but remember that these were spread out over several years. Except the roof and locked-myself-out-again incidents. But still. Cut me some slack.

But my biggest parenting fail of all isn't nearly so funny or embarrassing. Early on in my older daughter's life I was really struggling with the anxiety that often comes with parenting. I woke each day very aware of the responsibility that comes with being a parent and of the reality hat I was unlikely to perfectly fulfill that responsibility. With desires to see my daughter growing, prospering and most importantly, walking with the Lord, I carried the huge burden of thinking that I really needed to get everything right as a parent. The weight of that burden and my obvious inability to perfectly protect, provide for, and nurture my daughter's faith were a recipe for all sorts of struggles for me. 

My failure was that I wasn't giving myself room for failure. Obviously we should strive to do our best as parents but I was simply not being fair with myself in acknowledging that I am both finite and fallen. It can be a crushing weight to carry someone else's future in your hands when you don't even carry your own future in your own hands. So I had to bring that burden to the Lord. I'm not a perfect person so it was a failure to think that I could be a perfect parent. 

Admitting my failures, limitations and brokenness has really helped transform my parenting. I am freed to be myself which is great in and of itself (most of the time). More importantly it has helped me look to the Lord with fervent prayer and utter dependence. I don't have to be perfect as a parent just like I don't have to be perfect before God. Jesus gets to be my perfection before God just as God gets to be the perfect Father for my children! My job is simply to point my children towards God. 

No pretense. No acting like I have it all together. Freedom to confess and apologize and seek forgiveness from my kids. No burden of being a perfect parent. An ability to laugh at mistakes and even share them with others. 

Being a walking, talking parenting failure is not such a bad thing when you see how it drives you toward dependence on God.

An 'expecting' friend recently asked for insight on parenting. My advice as a parenting failure was perhaps unexpected and looked a bit like the following:

• "Admit defeat" early in the game. You aren't going to be perfect so before the failure ever happens let yourself off the hook and resolve to be ok with falling short. 
• Learn from failure but don't burden yourself with trying to be a perfect parent. 
• Laugh at yourself and don't take parenting so seriously. Have fun with the journey.
• And finally, ask for help, mostly from the Lord.  

I'd love to hear some other parenting fails. Or some ways you've struggled as you watch your own imperfections passed on to your kids. Most of all, I'd love to know how you've been able to watch God work in your kids lives in ways you never could have worked.

Hard Conversations

I have had a week filled with hard conversations. Emotional conversations. Frustrating and confusing conversations. And I have loved it. Not because I enjoy the discomfort of the conversation but because I enjoy the fruit of the conversation. I have been thinking about what comes from leaning in to difficult subjects with people you know, love, and trust. It takes openness and a vulnerability and humility that is uncommon but if and when we can sit in the conversation long enough God begins to work something new in our hearts and minds.

As I have reflected on this week of loaded conversations I have discovered some fruitful outcomes that are a good reminder for me to engage in other difficult conversations:

• Staying present in another's pain and being able to bring your pain before them builds trust. The trust is not in the other person's actions, productivity, or ability to achieve certain things but rather the trust is in their heart and their person. When your can safely bring your intimate thoughts and feelings before others and not be crushed by them something beautiful happens in a relationship.
• Truth found together is cherished differently. There is a bond forged between people through the heat of discussions that go long enough and hard enough to get to the truth.
• Truth found together creates accountability. There is no power dynamic at play when two people truly come to an understanding through a fair process of discussion. The agreement is mutual, two-way, and something that each party can see as existing independently of any one person. It isn't "your" truth or "my" truth, but the truth.
• Saying hard things brings things in to the light. God's grace will only work on those things that we bring into the light. 
• Hard conversations force introspection. Self inventory can be hard but having someone else challenge you with new or different thoughts or observations can reveal things you wouldn't see otherwise. Imagine shining a flashlight into a dark room (your heart/life). You can see certain things well but other things remain hidden. A hard conversation and a trustworthy friend is like having a mirror placed in that room to reflect and bounce the light into new places. It multiplies and spreads the light giving you a better picture of what is there.
• Struggling through difficult issues helps you humbly realize that you might not have all the answers. While some people desperately want resolution and clarity, sticking with it through long conversations helps you realized that with some issues, especially those involving people and relationships, there isn't going to be a day where it is all figured out. Instead you can commit yourself to a journey and a process.
• Difficult conversations help you laugh at yourself. Eventually something has to break the tension, and more often than not that seems to come when someone is willing to laugh at their own mistake or missteps. 
• Hard and emotional conversations bring you to the Lord in prayer with a soft heart yearning for comfort and healing, desperate for truth and righteousness that acknowledges our absolute dependence on Him for receiving those things.

I am a passive-aggressive, stoic Minnesotan so hard, honest, and intimate conversations don't come easily. This week, even with all of its struggles and emotional wear and tear, is helping me see that there is great fruitfulness to taking the time and energy to dig in. Next step for me is thinking more about helpful and healthy ways to do that.

Running a Race

I ran a triathlon last weekend. It sounds impressive but honestly I think more people could do them than realize. The problem is that most people's exposure to them is only on tv when they show the insanely long, unhealthy-for-your-body/marriage/life Ironman triathlon. As a lifelong learner I thought I'd share some of my sarcastic and snarky observations from the event.

• Spandex really can be used on any and all body types. I wore spandex singlets for track in college and spent more time in it most people and even I am uncomfortable wearing it. I know it is comfortable for running and racing but I am not sure that just because it 'fits' that it should be worn.
• Being beat by a 53 year old doesn't hurt the ego when you realize he is a celebrity. The actor who played Roger Sterling in "Mad Men" definitely beat me. Pretty easily. Well played old man.
• My backside and the thin piece of synthetic padding that was my bike seat are not good friends. I walked away from the race with a miraculously small amount of muscle and joint soreness except for my derriere. I should invent a 'hover seat' for bikes. 
• My daughters love for me and desire to cheer for me is less than their desire to escape the boredom of watching people run and the longing to eat donuts brought to 'celebrate' with me. They were there, my wife tried to get them to really cheer, but the donuts and boredom were difficult to overcome. I should hire some cheerleaders to stand on the course next time.
• People take their hobbies too seriously. Waaaaay to seriously. It makes sense that the elite athletes who have sponsors would have bikes and equipment that cost six or eight or ten thousand dollars. It doesn't make sense that the other aging, balding, pudgy 33 year old's would have the same but they do. If you spend that kind of money you should at least be able to beat me. It's like the guy with the expensive fishing boat and latest equipment who still can't really get the fish in the boat.

Older, Rounder, and Hopefully Wiser

I am of the age where exercise and diet are conscious parts of my daily life. A few years ago this wasn't the case. The youthful days of eating whatever I wanted left several years ago. What a precious and wonderful gift of a high metabolism I had all those years.  Sigh...

Six months ago I had the misfortune of deciding to step on a scale right AFTER Christmas brunch where I was greeted by a number I had never seen before. There are rarely good surprises when one steps on the scale so I'm not sure why, after months of not checking, I felt that that fateful moment would be a good time to do so. For me, I was shocked to look down at a number that put me a few pounds heavier than my 'playing weight' when I was playing college football and eating 5,000 calories a day just to keep the weight on. Never again will I use a scale after a holiday meal!

Anyway, I have been reflecting on how I got myself into this situation. It has been a cruel trick of time that my old habits are all of sudden very detrimental to my health and well-being. A lot of life is like that. We develop habits and routines that are fitting to a specific time in life and that work within a certain place and for certain relationships. Because they work in that time/space/relationship we can trick ourselves into thinking we've got something figured out for life whether it be diet and exercise, time management, or relationships.

And then:

• we step on a scale and realize our old diet and exercise routine are suddenly not working
• we get married, get in squabbles over preferences and find that our selfish use of time doesn't work anymore and that some of our self-indulgent habits won't fly anymore
• we have kids and realize that some of the strength of our marriage was built on freedom, getting good sleep, and being selfish with our time.

It can be so easy to find ourselves backed into a corner wondering "how did I get here" when we rely on habits and routines to keep us healthy. We ought to be far more mindful and attentive to the changing demands of life so that we can adjust on the go. This would have made my Christmas morning much happier. 

It wouldn't be an issue if it only affected us but as an added kick in the pants, many of our petty fights are about these same habits, routines, and preferences. We have our way of doing things and we bring that with us through time and differing relationships and expect it to work everywhere and with everyone.

Circumstances, people, and even our bodies are always changing so it can be dangerous to become set in your ways. Life just has too much variety for us to ever settle too deeply into some of our habits and routines. That is what the scale told me on Christmas morning.

I'm not suggesting that we need to do away with routine and question whether or not brushing our teeth is good for us. But I think it is very helpful and appropriate to hold on to some of our habits and routines much more lightly than we typically do. And maybe we should build into our routine a time of self examination where we look at those habits, preferences, and routines and ask ourselves:

• "is this going to serve me well going forward?"
• "how is this impacting those I love?"
• "what circumstantial changes have I had or will I have that might re-shuffle the deck for me?"

For me and my expanding waistline asking these questions helped me make a few healthy changes to my diet and to my exercise habits. My body simply needs something different than what it did previously if I am going to remain healthy. The same is true of my marriage. And my parenting.

Chances are if you haven't given much thought to your habits, routines, and preferences you are probably holding on to some things that really won't help you in the long run. It's hard to give them up and it is difficult to change but it sure is worth it.

When Rest Is Hard

At the beginning of this year I chose “rest” as my ‘word for the year’. The idea was that I would spend the year reflecting on and seeking rest. Back in March I provided a quarter-year check-in on what the experience has been like. At the time I was encouraged by what I was learning and where I was at in terms of experiencing rest.

As a believer I knew that experiencing rest wasn’t simply a passive, action-less state. Instead rest is an active intentional pursuit of and connection with God regardless of the relative peacefulness of our circumstances. The last few months have definitely been a trial period for the thought that we can find rest in the midst of a busy, crazy life filled with unforeseen rough patches.

I don’t think that thought has failed me and I certainly don’t think God has failed me but I have failed to live that out. To be honest, I have been feeling pretty raggedy, worn out, and beat up at various stretches for the past few months. To quote a drunk man I ran into in the city: “Life just got all ‘lifey’”.

So what to do while I feel so worn out in the midst of a year spent pursuing rest?

Vacation might help. So might getting rid of the kids for a weekend. Or delegating some work responsibilities.

But I don’t think any of those is an answer for me right now. You see, part of what I’ve learned about my pursuit of rest and peace is that it is found in God and that it is accomplished through a relationship with him. Rest and peace come from relationships, primarily with Him. In order to experience rest we need God and we need community.

We rest in the arms of a loved one.

We rest in the warmth of a parent’s approving smile.

We rest in the laughter and ridiculous antics of a long-time friend.

We rest in the re-assuring eyes of a spouse whose eyes say: “you’ve got this.”

And we ache for the return of a loved one knowing their return will bring peace.

And we long for the good old days when time and space allowed for more relationships .

And we despair of being citizens of another kingdom, tarrying here until we are called to that place we will call home.  The place where other loved ones have gone before. The place where our First Love awaits us forever.

And so as I have struggled with finding rest and peace these past several weeks I have had to fight my tendency to withdraw and my desire to be alone. Those things aren’t bad, but as I have searched my heart and asked God to search me I have realized that I don’t really long for solitude. I long for Him and for His home and His family. Because He is my loving Father and His home is my home and His family is my family.

As a deer pants for water so my soul longs for him. And my soul longs for more of those cherished relationships that point me towards him.

Today I am feeling restful. Time at the lake with the Word, a slow morning with my family, and a few days spent with loved ones who love the Lord is a balm for the soul. A few days ago I thought I needed to be alone. When it gets noisy with all the kids I still think that! But much better that being alone has been being around people who can help me re-orient my life around seeking God.

Perhaps you too are craving rest. I’d encourage you to not go about finding it all on your own. Spend time on your relationship with God. Then call on those people who best point you towards him.

If you are not in that place of longing, let God use you to help bring that peace to someone else. Call that friend you haven’t talked to in a while to encourage them. Connect with that Facebook friend that you saw was going through a hard time so that you can know how to pray for them. Call your parents and tell them you love them.  Invite your single/widow/widower neighbor over for coffee or dessert. Or maybe, in the quiet and calm of the rest and peace that you have, pray the same for your loved ones.

It is often far easier to do some good in this world than we imagine. We just may help someone else connect with God along the way.

Some Anniversary Reflections

By the good Lord’s grace my wife and I have somehow made it to our 9^th anniversary. That’s not particularly remarkable. Lots of couples make it that far. Perhaps what is amazing isn’t so much that we’ve made it through 9 years of marriage but rather that we ever got married in the first place. I’m still not sure why she said yes.

At one of my wife’s bridal showers my very own mother told the group: “We’re just glad that Aaron found SOMEONE.” That sentiment was repeated by my brother at the groom’s dinner. Apparently there was familial concern that I was destined for bachelorhood. I’ve never followed up with them to see what the concern was. 

Anyway, nine years is worth celebrating because my wife is worth celebrating.  All of my best moments have come with her at my side. Chief among those moments was the time last summer when I started a slow clap at the Twins stadium that eventually spread through the whole stadium.  It was awesome. Close behind are the births of my children and my wedding day, but lots of people get married and have kids while few people start slow claps for crowds of 40,000 people.

Some other highlights of the past nine years include:

• Getting violently ill on our honeymoon. Who would have thought that serious illness was possible on a backpacking trip through a third world country? Not sure what I was thinking on that one.
•  Staying at a hotel/drug house in Guatemala where needles were left in the open on tables in the shared balconies. We moved the extra bed in front of the locks-from-the-outside-with-a-padlock door.
• Doing a 360 on an icy freeway alongside a semi-truck then jumping a median on her birthday just after we found out that we were expecting our first daughter.
• Me needing to be rescued from a closet because I played hide-and-seek with my daughters the day I ran a marathon but my legs gave out leaving my unable to get myself out.
• Our weights growing ever closer while Erica was pregnant with Miriam. It got close there at the end!
• A New Years Day at the cabin that began by stepping out of bed into two inches of water. Sorry about the burst pipe, Dad!
• The time I sprained my ankle, ignored my nurse/wife’s advice and then passed out because of the pain.
• Being chased by an elk in Estes Park with our infant daughter strapped to my chest in the baby bjorn. No lie, it pulled up about 5 yards short of trampling us.     

      If I kept the list going most of the anecdotes would be re-iterations of me ignoring advice from Erica and then some sort of mishap or calamity visiting us. The amazing thing about our 9 years is primarily that I am still alive and that I haven’t driven my beautiful bride to insanity. Seriously she is patient, kind, loving, caring, intelligent, and a gift from God to all who know her. She is the kind of mother that others want to learn from, the kind of friend that people want to keep for life, and the kind of person that makes others better. None of those is true of me (especially the mother part) and I am so grateful that she is mine and I am hers. Some long lost charm of mine must have been at play when she said yes all those years ago. 

      

      As a gift to the internet I leave you with the invitation to our groom's dinner 9 years ago:

   

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